"Okay. Thank you. Good-bye," said Remo.
"That song made me three million bucks," said Debbie.
"Did they bribe you to stop?" asked Remo.
"You know, you're impossible. You don't know who I am. You don't know who you're talkin' to. You don't know nothin'. That's ignorant. You're ignorant. You and your old friend there. Ignorant. Uneducated. So buzz off, I'm leavin'. "
In a whirl of off-colored bangles and layers of rags, Debbie Pattie turned to leave.
"Genaro Rizzuto said there'd be people who hated you just for doin' good," she snorted.
Remo looked up from the little children. "Is he a lawyer?"
"A decent one, too. Not just a little money grubber like in show business. A decent human being, part of people helpin' people. Not like you."
Remo trotted after Debbie in the dusty street of Gupta.
"Look, I may have made a mistake. I don't know rock music. I don't know how those things work." Debbie waved her hands in the air, signaling she wanted to be left alone.
"I want to apologize for being rude," said Remo.
"I don't want to know you because you're ignorant. An idiot. An uneducated idiot. That's what youse guys is."
"You're right. Rizzuto is part of a law firm, isn't he?"
"One of the best. Get lost."
"You don't mean that," said Remo. He was going to work on her sensory system but he wanted to do it from upwind. He didn't know what she bathed herself in, but whatever it was, it was putrid. Now that he was willing to be friendly she wanted no part of him. He glanced back and saw Chiun silently, like the wind, move up the street toward him and the rock star.
In Korean he told Chiun this girl knew one of their targets was around, but he couldn't get her to talk. He had insulted her in some way.
"In what way?" Chiun asked in Korean.
"I told her to get lost," said Remo.
"Sometimes people can take that in a negative way," said Chiun in Korean, and then in English he called out after Debbie Pattie in what Remo recognized as one of those awful ung poems praising all nature and the power of the universe. Unusually, though, he did so in English translation.
"O radiance, that renews for all eternity. O shower of glory that blesses the little people beneath her, whose divine countenance radiates eternity and all-consuming power, we bless your eternal breath."
Debbie Pattie stopped in her tracks. She turned abruptly to Remo and Chiun.
"Yeah. Now that's a friggin' hello, already. Did you hear that?" she said, pointing to Remo.
"I heard it."
"He's a friggin' gentleman. You're a jerk, but a cute jerk."
"What wisdom," said Chiun with a little bow. Debbie Pattie posed in a grotesque parody of a statue, her head cocked to one side and one arm up, the wrist dangling limply. She looked Chiun and Remo up and down, and came to a decision.
"I like youse guys. You're hired. Go to my manager. He'll get you on the payroll. You, the young one, be in my van with your clothes off in a half hour. I may be there. I may not. Stay ready. Okay?"
"Excuse me, most gracious maiden," said Chiun, who was not about to endorse any union between his Remo and some painted hussy who might be diseased or, worse, bear a child without Chiun knowing her lineage.
Remo, Chiun knew, was fond of that slothful and self-indulgent habit even found in the Orient, of copulating for pleasure. This to Chiun was as ridiculous as eating food not for its nourishment but for its taste. In either sense, however, this jangling ragpicker in front of them was totally unsuitable.
"Excuse me, most gracious maiden, but I have a calling of a different nature. However, if ever there should be a woman in our lives, of course it would be the most glorious, gracious, magnificent apparition we see before us now." Thus spoke Chiun to the famous rock star in the muddy streets of the Indian city of Gupta.
"I'll pay more," said Debbie. "I'm reasonable."
"I'm not for sale," said Remo.
"Why not? You know who you're turning down?"
"I didn't say I was turning you down. I said I'm not for sale."
And holding his breath, Remo moved in close to Debbie Pattie.
"You're all right. What's your name?" she asked.
"Remo. "
"What kind of a name's dat?"
"White," said Chiun.
"And yours?"
"I am Chiun, Master of Sinanju."
"I like dat. You run Sinanju, huh?"
"No, I merely serve it, as I serve the world, as Sinanju has served the world throughout the ages."
"Ya see, dat's what I like. Doin' good. I'm into doin' good. Heavy. You know? Heavy into doin' good. You think I ought to give these people a few bars of my latest hit?"
"No. They're in enough trouble already," said Remo.
Debbie shot him a dirty look, but Remo quickly turned the subject to her friend Genaro Rizzuto, a decent man who had come to Gupta like all the other stars to help.
"We want to help too," said Remo. "I'd like to meet him."
Chapter 7
Nathan Palmer spotted the full extent of the disaster first. Rizzuto was on the scene in Gupta. Rizzuto could talk sparrows out of trees and he had brilliantly won over the government with well-placed lavish gifts, lined up the victims, and had one of the greatest negligence cases of all time aimed at one of the richest chemical companies of all time. Everything seemed perfect.
And then the little horrible fact of the paltry value of life in the third world reared its horrifying head, and Palmer was so panicked he canceled a date for the evening and called in Schwartz, who had to pry himself away from his stockbroker.